The Hawaiian gazette., 1887-01-18

fact. that the whole legislative bust
ness of the country had to come to a
standstill for two weeks in order to
allow the bulk of the members to at
tend to their duties as tax assessors
Well, this majority passed the law,
and in spite of the most urgent pro
test from the best people in the com
munity, in spite of representations
from the religious bodies, in spite Of
newspaper articles which demon
strated the iniquity that must follow,
the King signed the bill. Whilepass-
ing through the House, the bill was
amended in such shape that it was
practically unavoidable. But the Gov
eminent was not to be stopped by any
consideration of law. If the bill was
passed and signed some practical use
must be mads of it. So the license is
sold for how much, who can say? Os-
tensibly for $4,000, practically, so
report says, for considerable over
double that sum, though into whose
pockets the balance went is not clear,
but rumor also has placed even the
individual.
But having sold the license it was
necessary, in some way, to get the
/ drug into the market and the law, as
above mentioned. being unavoidable,
the Government hit upon the plan of
1 getting the Minister Of Interior to
4 issue a set of so-called regulations.
which are in fact. an amendment to
the original law, and for which the
Minister has not a shadow of author
ity. Yet these regulations have been
published and are supposed to be
binding. That such regulations should
be extraordinary in character goes
without saying. They will be found
in another column. What for instance,
can be more absurd than regulation
five. By it the Marshal of the King
dom is to receive for his own use fifty
cents for every license to use opium
issued. A direct incentive is given to
this man to urge the use of opium, to
persuade people to take out licenses.
The more smokers the finer will be
the Marshals salary, or rather per
quisites. Moreover, as he has full
charge of the police, any little irreg-
ularities that he himself might com
NIT, in order to swell his gains, could
only come to light through his own
fundamentally. The temptation is
one which even the most immaculate
of men ought not to be subjected to
we doubt if the immaculate man is to
be found for the position of Marshal
of the Hawaiian Kingdom The po-
sition which the Marshal is in is
nearly analogous to that of the
Northern Colonel in the Civil war
He was on duty to prevent cotton
being run through After he had
been posted there for some time he
telegraphed to headquarters to be
recalled. He was refused. Again he
telegraphed, and again he was re-
fused. Finally he turned up at head
quarters himself Explanations asked
for. Easily given. You see, Gen
eral," said the Colonel, "they offered
me $4,000 to let the cotton through,
then they oaorod mo $4,000, then
$4,000, and they got up to 100000.
This seemed to be about my figure so
[ leftr' VIII the Marshal leave?
But there is another development of
this affair which deserves the segerest
censure. There is distinct report to
be heard at every street corner that a
sum of money has been paid to bride
the giver of the license. This is bad
enough, but it is further stated that
two sets of people paid the bride and
that those who paid the smaller
amount, have had their money re
tanned in spite of not getting value
received. When we first heard the
story we could not believe it. We
hope that we may be forced to disbe-
lieve it. But the evidence which has
been laid before us seems very clear.
Throwing aside the idea that the re-
port is true, how low an opinion of
their rulers people here must have
when such story can have current
report. We hope it is not true, but
we have yet to find the man who has
said, L don't believe it,
And this is what opium has brought
this country to. Its highest men are
accused of crimes amounting to high
way robbery and supposing those ac-
cusations not to be true, its whole
executive and Legislature have
joined together to debauch and pander
to its worst class of citizens. Is not
this infamous? When the full tale of
iniquity is told, those men of Anglo
Saxon race, who have made their home
on these Islands, viii be ashamed that |
they have allowed such things to 60.
1t is about time that they insisted they
should stop.